Did you catch the post-game quote sheet? Normally those things are totally booooring but this little gem came from from Hope Solo:

I can’t wait for the World Cup. This crowd was amazing. I actually got excited when I got booed and whistled because that never happens. This was great. It’s what it should be like.

Hello open invitation! If during the 2010 season you just so happen to be standing next to her goal and you just so happen to toss a bunch of streamers into her goal and then you just so happen to inform her she is not in her parent’s basement and she needs to clean that mess up RIGHT NOW – yeah, it’s totally cool. You should do that.

* FC Gold Member did something and by doing something, they beefed up their defense by signing Niki Cross. And then they beefed down the depth in their defense by trading Allison Whitworth to the Atlanta Beat. In return, they got the 3rd and the 10th picks from the first round of the draft and are apparently now the owners of most of the picks. Honestly, I am not paying enough attention to this stuff to make any predictions on who will be entering January’s draft. But I will say this – if that Alex Morgan shows up, the Yay team should totally nab her not just because she’s a really good offensive player, but also because the entire male heterosexual population of Chile is in love with her.

* The Boston Breakers filed discovery claims on Kozue Ando and Shinobu Ohno who they are hoping will be the big-guns forwards coach Tony is looking for.

* The Chicago Red Stars signed midfielder Julianne Sitch. The big story here is that she’s from the Chicago area. This is Chicago’s first move since free agency began and honestly, I couldn’t even begin to speculate on it. Patience grasshoppers.

* La Sol signed Czech forward Pavlina Scasna which is apparently one little piece of some sort of crazy multi-part trade that may only make sense to a select few people at the moment. And LA have no more international slots now.

* Lots of stuff happened in the UK which, lucky for us, the excellent site Girls in Football covers with waaay more depth than any news source I’ve encountered so far. If you care about that region, you should just go there.

* FC Indiana coach Shek Borkowski is now the new head coach (with some other guy) of WFC Zvezda-2005 of the Russian Premiere League. I’m guessing that might mean he is not longer coaching the Lionesses, but with women’s soccer, it seems everybody has like five jobs so I’m not so sure about that one.

* The W-League is adding another team which seems a bit crazy to me considering the fact that all the Canadian teams just dropped out of the USL. I think the W-League may want to start thinking “backup plan” in case the USL completely falls apart. Sooner rather than later, ladies.

* According to a post over at the Fan Corner, there wil be a “six continental confederations linked to the FIFA (Concacaf – North America Soccer Confederation, Central and Caribbean; Conmebol- South american Confederation of Soccer; Soccer confederation of Oceania-OFC; Soccer-CAF Africa confederation; Asian confederation of Soccer- AFC; And European Confederation of Soccer- UEFA)”. Oh hey, great idea! I hope it happens and that the fans get to watch it… somehow.

* AND FINALLY! Team on 3 is dead set on proving the USWNT are funny by posting a bunch of videos of them… being funny. Nice selection but missing one of my faves: Natasha Kai singing karaoke. The post also reminds me of those hilarious US Soccer podcasts Sacha Kljestan and Benny Feilhaber used to do – before they turned all douchey. I miss those podcasts. It was a simpler time back then.

StupidFilter results: Text is not likely to be stupid.

So what else is going on in the world of women’s soccer?

Tiffany Weimer is excited to start playing for the Breakers this season. Also excited is Kelly Smith. She says: “Watching her play is an absolute pleasure, I’m really excited.” *GULP*

According to her club in the Netherlands Daphne Koster signed with Sky Who Blue. As the captain of the Danish National team, she took them all the way to the Euro semi-finals.

Did you miss the audio interview with Abby Wambach and Cat Whitehill this week? That’s ok. The Freedom Insider took notes for us.

Goal.com checks in over at the Australian W-League where Sydney FC will play the Brisbane Roar this weekend. Seems the two teams are developing a bit of a rivalry. Says WPS free agent Sarah Walsh: “It will probably be Sydney’s toughest game… It’ll come down to – to borrow the old cliché – of who wants it most.” Both teams contain the highest number of Matildas (national team players) in the league. Should be a bloodbath.

Over in the UK, there are apparently some rumors that Grimsby Town may ask Hope Powell to be their new head coach which would make her the first first team female coach of a UK men’s team. Likely just rumors but it seems folks agree that she certainly is qualified to do it.

Also in the UK comes a story from the Guardian – John Terry put his pants back on long enough to realize the Chelsea Ladies were in all sorts of financial trouble and he bailed them out, found them a new head coach, became the club’s president, and started attending their games. no word on whether he chased down Lorrie Fair for an autograph.

On a similar note, WPSL finalists Ajax America are officially broke and need everyone’s financial help to keep on playing. Also revealed in that link is the news that LA Sol lost $2 million dollars in 2009 but AEG do promise to remain partners through 2010. After that? Well, let’s hope Anthony LaPaglia doesn’t bail too.

The Soccer Science blog asked Emma Hayes 10 questions in a segment that really should be renamed Get To Know Me!

AND FINALLY, Match Fit USA is conducting a contest to determine who will be the winner of the Twitterverse Players League. Simply put, readers get to vote on their absolute favorite US men’s soccer player on twitter. This contest got me wondering – if there was a women’s version, would there even be enough interesting tweeters to have a proper contest? Seriously ladies, it’s time to step it up.

When a player signs a contract with a WPS team, many things are negotiated. Along with the compensation, is the duration of how long the player’s rights will be held by the team. Many contracts last for a year (or a season), with team options for subsequent years attached to it.

According to the WPS standard player contracts, teams have until 30 days after the end of the league season (which this year, was as of the All Star Game) to exercise their options. At this point, teams can do one of four things:

1. Exercise their option for a player – thereby bringing them under contract for the 2010 season. OR

2. Waive their right to exercise their option – thereby forfeiting their rights to extend the player’s contract for the 2010 season. As a result of waiving their option, the player then will become a free agent when free agency opens at the end of the options exercise period. OR

3. Do nothing, and let their option lapse, also rendering the player a free agent. OR

4. Sign the player to a NEW contract (rather than exercise her option) for the 2010 season and perhaps beyond. There are a few additional rules about this that apply depending on what the terms of the new contract are and whether or not the player was protected in the expansion draft, but I digress.

The options exercise period ended on September 29 and right on queue, each team announced who will stay and who will – not necessarily go but – become a free agent. Except one effin day before all that, Boston traded Amy Rodriguez to Philly for their 2010 first round draft pick. My only guess as to why that happened ONE DAY before free agency was that possibly she signed a multi-year contract in 2009? It’s just a weird trade is all. Moving on…

Boston grabbed Tiffany Weimer. They dumped one hyped yet underwhelming player for another. Except Weimer did play for coach Tony already at SoccerPlus FC so here’s to Weimer having a freaking awesome season this time around.

Philly grabbed Heather Mitts in a move that surprised absolutely no-one but did add a slight bit of intrigue to this free agency period.

They also signed Caroline Seger to a three year deal marking season two’s first high-ish profile international signing.

And then they traded their 5th and 22nd draft picks for LA’s Allison Falk and Val Henderson clearly demonstrating that Philly is more concerned with building a team of veterans over gambling with the upcoming draft.

FC Gold Bonds grabbed Candace Chapman out of free agency which is significant because I kinda hope they are attempting to sign the entire Canadian National Team… and then grab Canada’s new head coach.

Annnnnd, in a move that has nothing to do with free agency, Sky Blue FC announced Pauliina Miettinen as their new head coach. Not entirely what I hoped for (my soccer/Fargo dreams are completely dashed) but after reading the press release and how Sky Blue’s GM emphasized that Miettinen has a psychology degree and coupled with Miettinen’s quote that she wants to join the “family,” (she said family twice) I’m wondering if Sky Blue’s locker room will eventually start looking like this:

But not to worry though, last time I checked, Natasha Kai still plays for them and I expect if Sky Who Blue start getting all touchy feely on our asses, she’ll be right there to knock some sense into those b*tches. Here she is keeping it real in ESPN’s recent body issue. I can’t imagine this picture would qualify to be posted on either Habs Offside or Wags Offside so it just remains here in this WPS ghetto. Enjoy.

And here it is full size

Ok, I may have forgotten something but I think those are the big deals going down so far. Elsewhere in the world qualifiers are still underway for the first ever UEFA Women’s Champions League (and there are so many goram clubs participating, just click on that previous link to keep tabs on who is winning), Wales announced it will start it’s own professional league, there’s You Tube clips of Marta and Christiane playing in Brazil, and I am going to bring the StupidFilter back to WPS The Offside so you can see the results of a program written solely to “detect rampant stupidity in written English.” I’ll be running the text of all my blog posts going forward through this thing and adding the results in the footers…

StupidFilter results: Text is likely to be stupid.

(DOH! It’s my first ever stupid rating!)

But the expansion draft does remind us all that WPS season two is on the horizon. I’ve been away for a while dealing with LIFE so I missed likely all the postseason reflections and reviews out there on the internets. Although I did catch Peter Wilt’s post at Pitch Invasion which is good enough for me! Just read that one. So I say it’s time to move on to season two! Haters to the left. Looks like the league has another year in it. Here’s what I’d like to see happen for 2010.

Christie Rampone is officially named head coach of Sky Blue FC By April she should be showing and I think it will be crazy cool to see her preggers self perched on the sidelines bossing everyone around like a soccer version of the movie Fargo – but without all the blood and snow and William H Macy. Even better would be Rampone solving murder cases while at the same time coaching her team to their second league victory.

Kim Zolciak becomes a sponsor of the Atlanta Beat and her headshot is screenprinted on the front of their jerseys This will, of course, coincide with the release of her soon to be hit album follow up to the smash single Tardy to the Party. Kim, THE BRAND. You know she only needs to ask Big Papa for the money. And then Real Housewives season three will feature scenes from team practices & games. And WPS, the brand, gets plastered all over Bravo tv for a few months. Win win.

Justin.tv or Ustream.tv or Veetle or whoever gets a WPS channel I was pleasantly surprised to discover a few months back there was a 24 hour online rollerderby channel. Interviews, live games, random filler. Very impressive. Just sayin’.

Rachel Brown joins WPS Perhaps the Euros final was not her shining moment but I spent most of that game thinking the England keeper really is the spitting image of Christina Cox, one of the actresses on that mediocre soap opera in space, Defying Gravity. And after reading that the British “Superleague” is on hold yet again, perhaps she really is Christina Cox? Girl has gotta pay the rent somehow.

FC Gold Pride actually sign a player under the age of 40 And the rest of us spend one more year inventing new and hilarious ways to make fun of the name “FC Gold Pride.”

A US player will finally outshine the foreign players A year ago at this time, I fully expected the brand spanking new league to unveil a whole new crop of amazing American players. Uhhhhh, no. Instead, we got to meet (some of us for the first time) Sonya Bompastor, Eniola Aluko, Lisa De Vanna, Karina LeBlanc, Aya Miyama, etc etc etc. A few fresh faces creeped into the roster for the upcoming USWNT training camp and WPS marketed the Olympic winners hard in their advertising campaigns. But on the field… I dunno… I felt like our domestic draft picks just kinda disappeared. No star quality? No flair or creativity? Are we still just settling in? Fuck it. Let’s bring on season two!

That’s Kristen Graczyk and what’s-his-face modeling something or other for a local San Jose California rag called The Wave (more pics plus full article here). But if you do click on the link to the article, you’ll quickly discover that the dress above costs *cough* $1,140. I could fill an entire notebook with things I’d pay $1,140 for and none of them would be THAT DRESS. And don’t even get me started on the irony of the title: “Winning Style.”

(and is it just me or are they posing in front of a freezer full of raw meat?)

Moving on… Sky Blue FC and the Washington Freedom are currently tied for 3rd place with the Boston Breakers a measly one point behind them. This Saturday, Sky Blue play Washington and Boston play LA on Sunday. At some point in the middle of that mess, St Louis play FC Gold Pride but whatevs to that game, right? The WPS site mapped out every single playoff scenario for us which is kinda cool but also kinda weird in a creepy sort of “dear fans, you didn’t vote for Marta therefore you can’t figure shit out for yourselves” kinda way. But basically, it boils down to – whoever wins on Saturday gets home field advantage for the first round and Boston are out if they lose on Sunday. There you go. Also, there will be an audio feed of Saturday’s game and Sunday’s game will be on FSC.

You gotta wait til around minute 2 in the above video to see Natalie Spilger perform a flip-throw throw-in. A what? you say? This thing…

She did it twice during the game. The first time, Fox Soccer Channel gave us the slow motion replay of her acrobatics (sadly, NOT featured in the video above) to which I immediately yelled, “It’s the flip throw in slow mo!” And it made my entire weekend. Chicago beat LA 3-1 and just like FC Gold Pride, they waited til after they were out of the playoffs before showing fans they can play like a real professional soccer team. Except unlike FC Gold Pride, Red Stars game attendance is rising. So the Red Stars are doing something right over there in the midwest and I’ll tell you what one of those many many right things are: Natalie Spilger. Not only did she get so wasted in college she yelled at the cops and got arrested, she also runs that Green Laces organization and is apparently now taking meetings with the NBA. Basically this woman is my new hero and I regret forgetting to vote for the WPS All Stars when I had a chance because I’d mark her in for every category (including favorite AND second favorite WPS team – just the Natalie Spilger team, that’s all anyone needs). Natalie for president (of our hearts!)

picture courtesy of the FC Gold Pride twitter feed cheers David!

Ok. So now we’re looking at Washington, Boston, and Sky Blue to fight for a post-season. Boston are one point behind Washington and Sky Blue are two points behind Boston. Sky Blue have two more games to play while Washington and Boston have just one. I’m getting nervous just typing this.

And the W-League final is set. La Sol affiliates, Pali Blues will play Washington Freedom affiliates, uh, the Washington Freedom.

I took this picture in the bathroom stall at San Francisco’s Kezar Pub today. My phone doesn’t have flash and I think I dropped it one too many times so sorry about the quality. But it probably doesn’t really matter anyways (that’s Rachel Beuhler in the photo). With this past weekend’s results, both FC Gold Pride and the Chicago Red Stars are eliminated from the playoffs. And Washington and Sky Blue are now tied for fourth place. Next up, Sky Blue sit the upcoming week out and St Louis attempt to finally win that #2 berth.

No cristal for this bunch. With Thursday night’s 0-0 tie to FCGP, LA Sol get that one elusive point to make them the WPS regular season winners. Now they have an automatic bye to the final and home field advantage – meaning this thing will be at the Home Depot Center on Aug 22 (mark your calendars). And they’ve managed to do it with games remaining in the regular season. Two of those games are even on tv! And one is against the Red Stars. This weekend, in a game only available online, the Red Stars are going to give it one last shot to make a post-season run. If they fail, they’re out, and their upcoming televised match between LA will be pretty effin’ meaningless. On August 2, both teams could just take off to the bar and field a roster of trained monkeys. Ok, I’d totally watch that.

The Red Stars will make their final stand on Sunday and they’ll do it wearing green uniforms. It’s an environmental thing ya know. I do my part by buying the box wine – lower carbon footprint than the regular wine. The Red Stars will do their part by wearing the green jerseys then auctioning them off afterwards.

The Freedom don’t play this weekend The Freedom play Chicago this weekend and Sky Blue are yet again going to fight to keep their slim lead over Washington… by playing Boston… who are in third place but nipping at the heels of STL… STL are up against FCGP on Sunday. It’s a two point difference between STL, Boston, Sky Blue, and Washington right now (and in that order) so we may see another shift in the postseason line-up by Monday. And apparently with Thursday’s tie, FCGP aren’t completely out of it yet. But who are we kidding?

The Freedom, on the other hand, soldiered through a depleted squad from call-ups to beat STL. But that’s not the story here. Third string goalie, Kati Jo Spisak, hurt herself in the second half and had to sub out. Except, with first choice Mcleod off with Canada and second choice Scurry injured, goalkeeper coach Nicci Wright had to come out of retirement and finish the game. But that’s not even the best part of the story. Did you watch this one? (it was available online – just sayin’) Cause Eric Wynalda was one of the commentators. So when Wright subbed in, he asked, wouldn’t it be funny if she blew the Freedom’s lead? Her players would never take her seriously again… which, of course, would be true but luckily Wright never had to worry about that potential problem. There was even a camera cut-over to Wright after a near miss that showed her nervously laughing and sticking her tongue out.

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The Red Stars/Sky Blue game turned into Natasha Kai injury watch. Girl walked into that with tweaks to both shoulders. She then spent the rest of the game dragging her team to the win and possibly injuring the rest of herself in the process. She created quite a few chances she couldn’t finish and didn’t wind up scoring the lone goal but I bet if she was fit, she’d have gotten a hat trick. Barring any extreme upsets, Sky Blue and the Freedom are really the last teams fighting for a post-season. But with Kai’s injuries and the return of her teammates from national team duty, this may be her last hurrah for 2009. Bit of a bummer considering her great 2008 with the nats.

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I missed the FCGP/Boston game. It wasn’t online, it wasn’t on tv, and I had to deal with some stupid house crap so I couldn’t make it down. But I already knew it was gonna be a loss for the team at the bottom of the table. And after watching the San Jose MLS team sit at the bottom of their table AGAIN, I’ve got a new theory that Buck Shaw stadium is cursed (I’m too lazy to look up the college teams’ stats so my theory is not quite complete). In fact, I’m thinking Sarah Winchester got bored of her unfinished house down the street and moved into the press box. Also, I want Tiffany Weimer traded to another team asap. At the beginning of the season, she was the one to watch and now she’s getting subbed out of the game at the half.

So for the next month, focus on Sky Blue and the Freedom. Sky Blue start off playing the number 2 & 3 teams on the table with Natasha Kai needing to pull more magic out of her ass this coming Wednesday while her teammates on the nats play Canada again. The Freedom have it easy against the last two teams on the table and Boston in between. So by the time these teams face each other on August 8th… well, their last meeting was this past week and ended in a 4-4 tie.

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